Brewing Up a Hoppy Hobby

Brewing your own beer in the comfort of your home can be a great pastime. You can try out new flavor combinations and create something that is truly your own. Sean Hamilton does just that, crafting his own concoctions at home. Hamilton lives and works in Cuyahoga Falls and is actually taking his passion to the next level with a microbrewery of his own, Missing Falls Brewery.

What’s the origin story of you and home brewing? My father was a home brewer and I suppose my interest started back in the day watching him brew on the kitchen stove. I used to hate the smell of malt and hops boiling throughout the house, but I always found it interesting watching him do it. I have been an avid home brewer myself for about 17 years now, and I now love the smell of the grains. I have updated to a bigger system in the garage and the one thing I miss now is my house smelling like malt for a couple days after brewing.

How would you describe home brewing to someone who has never heard of it? Home brewing is a good way to gain knowledge of what goes into beers and how different processes and ingredients affect flavor and body. It is also a process that cannot be rushed, so it teaches you patience.

What are three things you didn’t know when you first started?

1. Cleanliness is the most important part of brewing. Everything must be clean and sterilized before, during and after brewing.

2. When it comes to adding flavors to beer, a little goes a long way. You can always add more—you can’t take it out once it’s in. We tried to make a beer with peppermint once. We used peppermint tea bags and just guessed how many we needed—we used 10 times what we needed. The taste of peppermint was so strong that I still can’t eat peppermint to this day. It ruined peppermint for me.

3. [Home brew] with a partner or join a home brewers club. You will learn much quicker and enjoy it more if you have someone to discuss your brew sessions and ideas with.

Is it always worth the wait? Most of the time, yes. You will make mistakes sometimes and may have to dump 10 gallons of beer down the drain. One of the most rewarding parts of brewing for me is having people try my beers and love them. It took a lot of practice, but it was worth it.

What are a few tips you want to pass on to newcomers to the craft? Cleanliness is essential to good beer. Sterilize everything! You don’t want to ruin eight hours of work by forgetting to sterilize your equipment. Also water quality can have a huge affect on the flavor of your beer. Use distilled water or invest in a good filter for the water you use to brew.

Most importantly, how does the beer taste? Do you like it? Most of the beers we make now I really enjoy. But it isn’t always that way. We are constantly trying new methods and ingredients that aren’t always winners (peppermint). But that’s part of the excitement. One of the best parts of brewing is when you try your beer for the first time and it comes out exactly like you imagined—at that moment it is the best beer you have ever had.

tips for the first batch

Getting started with a new hobby can be intimidating. It’s difficult to put in the time, investment towards equipment and energy when you aren’t entirely sure what to do. Sean Hamilton has a few suggestions for newcomers to home brewing to help them get started.

Hamilton says there are three basic steps to brewing:

1. “The first thing you have to do is mash the grain. You steep the grains in hot water to convert the starches in the grain to fermentable sugars. You then drain and rinse the grains—this is called sparging—and collect this liquid, or wort, into your boil kettle. This step can be bypassed by using a malt extract, which a lot of home brewers use. Most of the flavor and body of the beer is influenced in this stage.”

2. “The second step is to boil your wort, adding the hops at specific times throughout the boil to give you the distinct bitterness you are looking for in the beer.”

3. “The third process is fermenting. After you boil your wort, you cool it down, transfer it to a fermenter and add the yeast. The yeast will feed on the sugar and convert it to alcohol. This will take around three weeks to complete.”

Though you can go it alone and learn while you brew, Hamilton recommends checking out a class or group. The Grape and Granary in Akron, for example, offers classes to help you get started. He also suggests starting out with a pre-measured beer kit with directions. “This was one of the things I would use when first learning how to brew,” he says. “It gives you the confidence that if you follow the directions, you will get a decent brew.”